customer experience tag

Drill down on customer experience search:

The Internet and the smartphone have altered customer expectations related to service. They have both elevated the requirement for fast results in terms of response times, and they have made consumers more comfortable with finding answers themselves using the devices in their hands and the information that is now at their fingertips.

Meanwhile, communications providers continue to expand the ever-growing number of services they offer to consumers. That now includes an array of Internet access, mobile, and TV services. The growing number of CSP services and customers also increases the potential for more help desk inquiries.

The customerexperience has always mattered, but its importance has grown in recent years. This has been driven by increased global competition, including the almost instant availability of alternations, and the rising expectations by fickle and informed consumer. Yet, cable operators have a long way to travel if they want to deliver the customerexperience (CX) that consumers demand.

The Temkin Group’s Q3 2014 survey of 10,000 US consumers’ opinions about goods and services registered the lowest ranking average Net Promoter Score (NPS) for pay TV providers, a telling statistic. Internet service providers did almost as poorly, coming in only one position higher.

“As technology innovations drive shifts in consumer behavior and open new service opportunities, operators must start eliminating pain points,” stressed Alcatel-Lucent’s Nicholas Cadwgan in a recent TechZinearticle, Cable MSOs transform the customerexperience. “This includes any obstacles that will impede their ability to launch and provide adequate care and quality assurance for those services.”

A Wi-Fi first strategy can help multi-system operators (MSOs) remain competitive in the evolving marketplace. Wi-Fi enabled devices default to using the cable operator’s Wi-Fi network for voice, and cellular equipped devices can switch to cellular when out of Wi-Fi range.

Although nuances in the business drivers for adopting such a strategy vary by region globally, this model turns the traditional cellular voice paradigm on its head.

Just like other communications or media industries, MSOs face a dynamic and extremely competitive market. As a result, in EMEA, they have evolved their end-user offerings to embrace market-leading fixed high speed internet access, Wi-Fi connectivity, and bundled mobile cellular services using mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) partnerships.

As the pace of change continues to accelerate, subscribers have made a widespread move to Wi-Fi enabled smartphones and tablets. A European commission study stated that 71% of all EU wireless data traffic in 2012 was delivered to smartphones and tablets using Wi-Fi. This is expected to rise to 78% by 2016.

European MSOs have already invested in Wi-Fi and offer data connectivity services in and out of the home. This not only is a customer retention strategy, but also lets MSOs build out further value added services (VAS) and can reduce data costs of their MVNO agreements. So if we now contemplate the delivery of voice to these Wi-Fi enabled devices, how do we get started?

Self-service to one degree or another has been present since the rise of the web. However, customers are increasingly choosing self-service because they feel more empowered and it is often perceived to be an easier interaction than dealing with a live person. The rise of the smartphone also has increased the use of self-service.

In fact, as explained by Jessica Verbruggen, Integrated Marketing Assistant at Alcatel-Lucent Motive, in a recent TechZine article, Empowering Autonomous Customer Self-Care, self-service can be a win-win for customers and communications service providers (CSPs).

No matter where one looks these days, be it in enterprises or service providers, there can be no disputing that enhancing the customerexperience has become a top, if not along with security the top, C-level concern.

Indeed, from burnishing the brand to enhancing customer loyalty, having permission to upsell and getting early visibility on new opportunities the customerexperience (CX is now the short appellation) has become a cross line-of-business preoccupation and priority. This has meant business units’ increased attention on listening to, analyzing and reacting upon needs arising from the “voice of the customer” (or certainly knowing more about their service usage behavior), and IT department focus on providing the tools necessary to support these requirements.

It has also meant that businesses of all sizes and vertical markets are changing their views on what it takes to have a better understanding of the customers. This means using new metrics for success. It also has highlighted the realization that you need to look at life cycle management of customers, i.e., as the headline says it is no longer about the destination in the form of a sale but is about assuring optimization of what has been popularized as “The Customer Journey.”

Ultimately, what it has also meant is that organizations need not only the tools, skills and strategies to optimize the customer journey but also need to be able do so quickly. The reasons are obvious but worth repeating. Competitors are becoming more nimble and customers armed with better real-time information themselves have become more fickle. Time is of the essence.

Illustrative of an area where there is, or certainly should be, a sense of urgency regarding having all of the capabilities to optimize the customer journey is in the global mobile services business. This is a sector rife with competition and susceptible to high churn rates. The good news is that the information that resides in the network and various lines-of-business (LOBs), when properly mined, analyzed and acted upon can give service providers more satisfied customers and a competitive edge.

The question is, where are the places to go to get the information and tools needed? The answer can be seen in a recent Alcatel-Lucent webinar, “LTE, It’s Not About the Destination, but the Journey,” which is embedded in its entirety below.

Churn can be a costly problem for service providers, particularly when it gets up into the high double-digit percentages. And that’s exactly what can happen when customers are less than satisfied with their communications services. In fact, it has been estimated that churn is 89 percent for subscribers who have a poor customerexperience.

While the Internet and all of the technologies that have stemmed from its creation have served to make our lives easier in many ways, they can also be very confusing and frustrating at times. In these times, people have traditionally turned to call centers to get customer support. In today’s increasingly digitized world though, fewer people are relying on this form of assisted service. Contacting a call center tends to be time consuming and, often times, frustrating. Traditional customer support is not very well-suited to handling the millions of very specific questions that arise during device usage every day. Enter mobile self-service.

There are few areas of our economy today that haven't been touched by the growing self-service industry. Many, it seems, prefer to resolve their issues themselves. People relish the ability to “do it themselves” because it affords them a certain level of control over their devices and services that was previously not attainable.

Traditionally, communications service providers (CSPs) have treated the field service aspect of their organization as a cost center. Field technicians engaged in maintenance activities were simply a part of the cost of doing business. More recently, the communications industry in general and the field service arena in particular, has been disrupted by immense changes in the customer profile, service expectations, and behaviors.

Field service is often the only face of the company that a customer will ever see, so it’s not a surprise that CSPs are striving to make a positive impact on customers in this realm. Achieving full potential in field service saves CSPs a lot of time and money. Productivity and efficiency reviews targeted at field service operations, done correctly, can reinforce other areas of the business by increasing customer satisfaction and improving safety and quality.

The increasingly competitive broadband market has service providers facing new challenges as they deliver services to today’s Internet-connected home. One challenge is delivering technical support for the rapidly increasing number of Internet-connected devices in the home. Consumers are now connecting gaming consoles, smart phones, tablets and other devices to their residential gateway, and their broadband Internet service. In light of this increasingly complex and dynamic technological landscape, it is no surprise that service providers have turned to analytics to better understand their customers’ needs.

Mobile data: It’s nice to share

From an early age, we’re taught that it’s nice to share. With time, we learn the value of sharing things like cookies, good books and the wisdom that comes from experience. But what about sharing mobile data? Do consumers want to share their mobile data? What would this look like?

In this second installment of the Six Degrees of Mobile Data Plan Innovation blog series, Alcatel-Lucent’s Rich Crowe takes a closer look at service level-based data plans. These plans can be used to give subscribers opportunities to enhance their mobile data services in exchange for a monthly or per-use fee.

What do consumers think about service level-based plans?

In February 2013, Alcatel-Lucent asked mobile broadband consumers in six countries about the concept of service level-based data plans. Globally, two-thirds of respondents said they would be interested in a premium service that could provide an enhanced quality of service (QoS).[1]

Knowing what to do — and what can be done — with big data are important key to success. But these things are easier said than done. For its special report on big data, European Communications asked respondents to name the biggest barrier to operators seeking to execute a successful big data strategy. A lack of understanding of the potential that big data presents topped the list, getting the nod from 27% of respondents.

This response highlights the real challenge for service providers: finding ways to extract value and create tangible benefits from big data. Providers have vast amounts of information about customers, networks, services and operations. So how can they monetize it?

Numerous research firms have recently published studies estimating that smartphones currently make up half of all mobile phone purchases globally and that number is expected to reach 75 percent by 2013. This is context for what is a vexing industry challenge. It turns out that more than half of all customer service calls to mobile service operators now deal with the difficult technical problems that can come from smartphones, such as mobile internet, and 63 percent of returned phones are not actually faulty.

In fact, a recent Yankee Group study notes that technical difficulties now represent a bigger percentage of call center volume than billing issues. They also represent a huge financial drain on operators. A single support call, for example, can cost a provider roughly a month’s worth of customer profit. This means finding ways to effectively address device configuration and service provisioning is more crucial than ever.

The battle for the best mobile device portfolio steals the headlines with its flashy array of smartphone offerings. However, increasingly it appears that the war will be won by the mobile broadband operator who provides the best customerexperience as enabled by overall quality of experience (QoE) on their network.

“To thrive in today’s competitive mobile broadband market, service providers must deliver superior QoE and enrich the customerexperience,” noted Greg Owens, director of marketing for customerexperience at Alcatel-Lucent, in a recent Enriching Communicationsarticle, “Customer Insights Improve Business Performance,stated that, “With growing pressure to reduce churn and increase revenues, service providers need to have a better understanding of how customers use their services.”

Mobile service providers throughout the world are in an interesting competitive situation. The service provided is becoming a commodity by consumers. This means that true differentiation in this market going forward will be driven by customerexperience transformations, such as those enabled by Alcatel-Lucent’s portfolio of Motive CustomerExperience Solutions, as traditional approaches prove to be increasingly ineffective.

Market realities today are that consumers tend to avoid brand loyalty when considering services delivered and even price points when there is little differentiation. As a result, mobile service providers by competitive necessity must pay particular attention to establishing exceptional customerexperiences if they hope to achieve business success. The focus must be on building trust with customers over time and increasing customer perceptions of the value of the customerexperience, rather than leveraging services and products.

Alcatel-Lucent s recently shared its view on this in a piece entitled, “CustomerExperience Transformation: The Mobile CustomerExperience Imperative.” It highlights these market changes and what service providers need to be thinking about in order to be correctly positioned for success.

Customers have growing expectations for mobile broadband services. Better networks, broader device support, ubiquitous connectivity and competitive prices remain essential, but they’re no longer enough to keep customers coming back for more. Today’s mobile customers demand a superior customerexperience, one that focuses on making it easy to discover, use and enjoy applications, devices and services.

Service providers are feeling the pressure to deliver on these expectations.

A renewed focus on QoE

Rising smartphone use is thrusting quality of experience (QoE) back into the spotlight. Smartphones appeal to users because they promise easy access to e-mail, apps, social networking and video. But smartphones have hidden complexities. Many users struggle with smartphone setup, app configuration, usage tracking and connectivity.

The end result is that smartphone users are turning to service providers more often — with problems that take more time to resolve.

The mobile broadband services market has become almost hyper-competitive globally. And, it has become increasingly clear that providing superior quality of experience (QoE) to customers, end users as well as third parties, will likely be a (if not the most) critical element in creating sustainable and profitable differentiated value. As a result, mobile service provider investment attention needs to be focused not just on delivering speeds and feeds but also on all aspects of QoE. A holistic approach for concentration on customer care¸ such as the Alcatel-Lucent portfolio of Motive CustomerExperience solutions, fits the needs for making sure the best possible user experiences can be provided, monitored and constantly improved.

Why customer care, and why a comprehensive approach?

The reason is that a holistic approach to customer care is a fundamental tool for reducing vital churn rates. The bottom line is the bottom line here. Service providers (SPs) have the opportunity to make better use of the subscriber and network data to help not only make customers more loyal but also improve average revenue per user (ARPU) based on establishing a relationship that customers view as more “trusted.” In fact, if done correctly, they can leverage the provisioning of compelling customerexperiences into a powerful tool for making satisfied customers enthusiastic brand advocates.

In this day in age, no matter what business you are in, the customer is king.

As we touched on last week (and commands further attention), European telecom operators are not cutting it when it comes to delivering a stellar – or even an adequate – customerexperience. This weakened Quality of Experience (QoE) tendency is forcing tech-savvy consumers to side with the company that is most responsive to their communications needs and not necessarily the one that offers a specific kind of service.

Typically consumers base their requirements on the strength, speed and coverage of their network, the depth and breadth of their product and services portfolio and, least of all, price. But this is the case no longer.

A recent study conducted in EMEA by European Communications – the results of which appear in a recent special edition, “CustomerExperience” – found overwhelmingly that telecom operators are losing their edge when it comes to QoE. Alarmingly, only17 percent of operators say they have a 360-degree view of their customers.

For the hotly competitive world of mobile communications service providers, it’s no longer enough simply to provide fast, reliable connections for a variety of devices at competitive rates.

A recent article in the Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) e-zine Enriching Communications titled, “Taking Care of the CustomerExperience,” co-authored by ALU’s Ben Geller, Senior Director of Marketing and Oliver Krahn, CustomerExperience Transformation Growth Program Leader, on this subject is worth a read. They explain how, “Service providers are learning that they cannot differentiate with devices, services or pricing.” This is clearly a dramatic change from the past.

Demand for broadband services is growing at an explosive pace as consumers look for richer and more personalized connected customerexperiences. But service providers’ fast and reliable networks can’t win over every customer. In addition, competition from new brands is making it tougher to differentiate with devices, services and pricing. In short, to stay competitive, service providers (SPs) have an imperative to cater to the needs of the market that goes beyond traditional approaches.

While consumers are aware that new technologies can bring added complexity, they also expect their devices and services to keep bringing them simpler and more compelling experiences. Based on these trends, SPs need new differentiators to remain competitive. To stand out and deliver market leading customerexperiences, SPs need to make their offers easier to buy, easier to use with more user-friendly options for payment.

Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive portfolio of solutions offers a four-pronged approach for SPs to step up their games.

It's indisputable that improving the customerexperience, the way end users interface with a company's support people and business processes, will improve the service provider's bottom line.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, customerexperience challenges that service providers face include: the cost of acquiring new customers; technical support and customer support/help desk.

“For many service providers, the new path to profitability is a holistic approach focused on anticipating customers’ needs and improving their Quality of Experience (QoE),” according to an Alcatel-Lucent article that points out the customerexperience has not always been a priority for service providers.

In today’s highly competitive mobile broadband market, it’s all about the customer. We all know that poor customer service not only gives a company a bad rap, but it ultimately eats away from their bottom line.

To keep customers on board and generate long-term success, service providers need to put more focus on the overall customerexperience, according to the experts at Alcatel-Lucent. For many service providers, they say, the new path to profitability is a “holistic” approach focused on anticipating customers’ needs and improving their quality of experience (QoE).

By Mae Kowalke Without customers, there would be no business. Service providers know this implicitly, of course. But as the market gets even more competitive, the stakes are increasing to make sure every customer interaction results in a better customer...